WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues.

"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."

Gil Kerlikowske, the new White House drug czar, signaled Wednesday his openness to rethinking the government's approach to fighting drug use.

Mr. Kerlikowske's comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate -- and likely more controversial -- stance on the nation's drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment's role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

Already, the administration has called for an end to the disparity in how crimes involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine are dealt with. Critics of the law say it unfairly targeted African-American communities, where crack is more prevalent.

The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn't provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition.

During the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama also talked about ending the federal ban on funding for needle-exchange programs, which are used to stem the spread of HIV among intravenous-drug users.

The drug czar doesn't have the power to enforce any of these changes himself, but Mr. Kerlikowske plans to work with Congress and other agencies to alter current policies. He said he hasn't yet focused on U.S. policy toward fighting drug-related crime in other countries.

Mr. Kerlikowske was most recently the police chief in Seattle, a city known for experimenting with drug programs. In 2003, voters there passed an initiative making the enforcement of simple marijuana violations a low priority. The city has long had a needle-exchange program and hosts Hempfest, which draws tens of thousands of hemp and marijuana advocates.

Seattle currently is considering setting up a project that would divert drug defendants to treatment programs.

Mr. Kerlikowske said he opposed the city's 2003 initiative on police priorities. His officers, however, say drug enforcement -- especially for pot crimes -- took a back seat, according to Sgt. Richard O'Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. One result was an open-air drug market in the downtown business district, Mr. O'Neill said.

"The average rank-and-file officer is saying, 'He can't control two blocks of Seattle, how is he going to control the nation?' " Mr. O'Neill said.

Sen. Tom Coburn, the lone senator to vote against Mr. Kerlikowske, was concerned about the permissive attitude toward marijuana enforcement, a spokesman for the conservative Oklahoma Republican said. [drug war]

Others said they are pleased by the way Seattle police balanced the available options. "I think he believes there is a place for using the criminal sanctions to address the drug-abuse problem, but he's more open to giving a hard look to solutions that look at the demand side of the equation," said Alison Holcomb, drug-policy director with the Washington state American Civil Liberties Union.

Mr. Kerlikowske said the issue was one of limited police resources, adding that he doesn't support efforts to legalize drugs. He also said he supports needle-exchange programs, calling them "part of a complete public-health model for dealing with addiction."

Mr. Kerlikowske's career began in St. Petersburg, Fla. He recalled one incident as a Florida undercover officer during the 1970s that spurred his thinking that arrests alone wouldn't fix matters.

"While we were sitting there, the guy we're buying from is smoking pot and his toddler comes over and he blows smoke in the toddler's face," Mr. Kerlikowske said. "You go home at night, and you think of your own kids and your own family and you realize" the depth of the problem.

Since then, he has run four police departments, as well as the Justice Department's Office of Community Policing during the Clinton administration.

Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports legalization of medical marijuana, said he is "cautiously optimistic" about Mr. Kerlikowske. "The analogy we have is this is like turning around an ocean liner," he said. "What's important is the damn thing is beginning to turn."

James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest law-enforcement labor organization, said that while he holds Mr. Kerlikowske in high regard, police officers are wary.

"While I don't necessarily disagree with Gil's focus on treatment and demand reduction, I don't want to see it at the expense of law enforcement. People need to understand that when they violate the law there are consequences."

This is certainly good news, but the article is sort of irritating; the crack/cocaine disparity was already in the works of being changed during the Bush administration, and if you're not going to start the process of decriminalization, what does it even mean to end that war? Are beat cops in Philadelphia and Boston getting this message? This is little more than Obama administration lofty rhetoric, methinks. Let's see some real policy shifts, and not token changes like ceasing raids on legal clinics (though I do think that's a good step).

If we want to get real about this, there should be a congressional panel to study racial disparities in sentencing for drugs, and at the very least marijuana should be partially decriminalized. People should not ever receive jail sentences for possession offenses, particularly with marijuana, and responsibility for drug policy should shift from law enforcement to public health. This is a step in the right direction, but just saying "end the war on drugs" isn't going to cut if if you're not going to seriously examine policing tactics and overall sentencing policies, as opposed to narrow issues like the powder/crack disparity, which is low hanging fruit.

I can't completely blame Obama, though, as this is a congressional issue first and foremost, but it's time to put some real weight behind ending this stupid "war." If in eight years, the prison population is still growing from drug offenses (not to mention marjiuana arrests rising!), we'll know this was just more talk.

Also, I was going to post this in the politics forum, but it hasn't had any action in months, so I figured I'd put it here. I guess a mod can move it if it needs to be moved.

Decriminalization of marijuana would be great, but I'd rather not see it get legalized because I like getting my weed tax-free. I wouldn't want the government telling me how much weed I could buy over a given period of time, and any other restrictions they might put on it.

That said, it would make a hell of a lot of sense to legalize all drugs. The black markets would take a major hit, there would be a crapton of revenue from sales.

And if people really want to fry their noodles with a meth/crack/heroin cocktail, I'm not sure why we are stopping them. The world's overpopulated and the herd needs some thinning out.

Sometimes it takes a crazy person to see the truth. If so, I'm a freaking lunatic.

I'm OK with legalizing pot, but most anything beyond that... nah. There's a pretty good reason most of this stuff is illegal (aside from pot, which is just stupid). The "war" as it's being fought is a failure, and will never, ever, ever work.

legalizing marijuana would be huge for America. It would lower crime rates. It would also mean less people in jail, so there would be less money going to the over crowded jails. And most importantly, it would be taxed like crazy. The money saved and made on legal pot could nearly single handily save a fledgling economy.

Note, I never smoked nor do I intend to. But it has a TON of benefits.

knapplc wrote:I'm OK with legalizing pot, but most anything beyond that... nah. There's a pretty good reason most of this stuff is illegal (aside from pot, which is just stupid). The "war" as it's being fought is a failure, and will never, ever, ever work.

Why do so many drugs require prescriptions? Because they're often extremely dangerous and addictive and people aren't responsible enough to self-medicate. If you make all drugs legal including heroin and crack and put them in every corner convenient store, I can't even begin to imagine the repercussions of that.

I think that legalizing marijuana would cause it's use to skyrocket even higher than it already is and am therefore against it. I do, however, think that my opinion is open for debate based solely on the number of people already using it. Debating the legalization of hard drugs, however, I think is insane and hopefully we can keep this thread limited to marijuana and not include heroin and crack where only a extreme minority of people think they should be legal.

I absolutely love the idea of decriminalization, and I'd support legalization of weed (and heavy taxation thereof ). I'd hesitate in legalizing hard drugs, though, because they're not very common as it is, and unlike weed they are FAR from harmless.

I think this is a first step but as long as Reaganite moral conservatives have as much power as they do I don't think we'll see decriminalization in the future. If my timeline is right and libertarianism becomes the platform of the new Republicans, then we might see decriminalization in 15-25 years. It's out of the question during the Obama administration IMO, culture can't shift that much that quickly.

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knapplc wrote:I'm OK with legalizing pot, but most anything beyond that... nah. There's a pretty good reason most of this stuff is illegal (aside from pot, which is just stupid). The "war" as it's being fought is a failure, and will never, ever, ever work.

Why do so many drugs require prescriptions? Because they're often extremely dangerous and addictive and people aren't responsible enough to self-medicate. If you make all drugs legal including heroin and crack and put them in every corner convenient store, I can't even begin to imagine the repercussions of that.

I think that legalizing marijuana would cause it's use to skyrocket even higher than it already is and am therefore against it. I do, however, think that my opinion is open for debate based solely on the number of people already using it. Debating the legalization of hard drugs, however, I think is insane and hopefully we can keep this thread limited to marijuana and not include heroin and crack where only a extreme minority of people think they should be legal.

The real insanity is letting the profits from hard drug sales go to overseas drug cartels instead of having that money here domestically. The public school system could get pretty much a complete overhaul with the money that's spent on hard drugs each year, and there'd still be money left over.

The drugs are being used, and that's not going to stop. Might as well be the ones to make the money instead of letting someone else have it.

The corner convenience store line is meaningless, because nobody would ever advocate such a thing. Put all the stuff in specialized shops, similar to pharmacies, and require the owners of those shops to have something similar to a liquor license.

Sometimes it takes a crazy person to see the truth. If so, I'm a freaking lunatic.

I agree with JB in that hard drugs have no place in society. They alter behavior in such dangerous ways that I can't ever see them being acceptable. Yeah, I know booze does too, but it's different. If you've been around a drunk and a hardcore user, you know there's a big difference.